Quantrill's War: The Life & Times Of William Clarke Quantrill, 1837-1865 [Paperback]

Duane Schultz (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 15, 1997

The definitive biography of Civil War legend William Clarke Quantrill--serial killer, psychopath, celebrated hero of the Confederate army. A riveting story of murder and revenge, Quantrill's War is a thoroughly researched and richly drawn study of the most unlikely hero in our nation's history.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

According to Schultz (Over the Earth I Come, etc.), Quantrill was a "career criminal" who preyed on both pro- and anti-slavery victims. The Civil War, Schultz writes, "merely provided an opportunity to pursue his chosen career of theft, murder, and destruction." During the war, Quantrill's underlings included a wide array of criminals and ne'er-do-wells, Frank and Jesse James, "Bloody Bill" Anderson, George Todd, Dave Pool and the Younger Brothers among them. By 1864, however, Quantrill's control over these men had slipped away. Eventually, he and a few followers went to Kentucky, where he was surprised and mortally wounded by a Union anti-guerrilla force on May 10, 1865. Schultz is a novelist (Glory Enough for All, 1993) as well as a historian, and he retells Quantrill's life with dramatic flourish?his re-creation of the Lawrence, Kans., massacre and of the pursuit of Quantrill by scattered Union forces is particularly exciting. Less scholarly and complete than Leslie's book (reviewed above), Schultz's is, however, a more exciting popular read. Readers interested in the dark side of the Civil War will find much to ponder in both volumes. Photos, not seen by PW.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Schultz (Glory Enough for All, St. Martin's, 1993) here gives us a major biography of Captain Quantrill, who has not been the subject of a serious study in 40 years. Quantrill and his band, including names later famous in the West, such as Cole Younger and Frank and Jesse James, fought as irregular guerrillas in Missouri and Kansas. While it is doubtful that Quantrill did indeed torture small animals as a boy in Ohio, as Schultz claims, there is no question he was a butcher, as Schultz's excellent account of the sack of Lawrence, Kansas, shows. Yet for all his brutality, and the fact that Quantrill fought for no cause but his own, he served the Southern Cause well by tying up thousands of Federal troops employed in his pursuit. Essential for both Civil War and Western collections. [For another look at Quanrtill, see Edward E. Leslie's The Devil Knows How To Ride: The True Story of William Clarke Quantrill and His Confederate Raiders, LJ 9/1/96.?Ed.]?Robert A. Curtis, Taylor Memorial P.L., Cuyahoga Falls, Ohi.
-?Robert A. Curtis, Taylor Memorial P.L., Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin; First printing/Full number line edition (November 15, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312169728
• ISBN-13: 978-0312169725
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,469,116 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Meticulously researched account of Quantrill is a great read, December 14, 2000

By 

James Overstreet (Memphis, TN USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Quantrill's War: The Life & Times Of William Clarke Quantrill, 1837-1865 (Paperback)

"Quantrill's War" by military historian and psychology professor Duane Schultz is meticulously researched and as fast-paced as a John Grisham novel. Schultz traces Quantrill's life from his birth in Ohio to his death in Kentucky, detailing how he went from a common hoodlum to a blood-thirsty guerrilla leader. Schultz clearly shows how Quantrill used the Civil War as an excuse to kill, pillage and terrorize the Kansas-Missouri border region. Schultz presents a well-documented and objective description of the bitter Kansas-Missouri civil war that began in the early 1850s with the Kansas-Nebraska Act. It is a time that spawned fanatical killers like John Brown, Jim Lane (who Schultz correctly identifies as a Kansas senator contrary to the assertions of another reviewer) and the pro-Union Jayhawkers like Charles Jennison. Likewise, the Confederate side contributed Bushwhackers and Border Ruffians like Quantrill, Bloody Bill Anderson and George Todd - not to mention Cole Younger and his brothers and Frank and Jesse James. Schultz demonstrates how these men were not regular Confederate soldiers; they were a roving band of marauders who refused to take orders and prisoners - nor did they expect their enemies to have mercy on them. They torched the homes of civilians and then shot them "like sheep-killing dogs." And -- if possible -- they treated Union troops with even less respect, gunning down in cold blood those who tried to surrender. Schultz recounts in excruciating detail the massacre at Lawrence, going house to house with the raiders as they drag men from their homes and shoot them and set the town afire. Schultz presented the murders in a sequence that vividly created a sense of the mayhem of the raid. And make no mistake, Quantrill's men committed cold-blooded murder. They dragged men and boys from their homes and shot them to death in front of their wives and mothers. Women and children were spared in a strange recognition of chivalry. Lawrence wasn't a regular Civil War battle and Quantrill wasn't a regular Civil War leader, so neither the raid nor the man has been much more than a footnote in Civil War studies. But the historical significance of guerilla warfare by both Bushwhackers and Union Jayhawkers during the Civil War is finally receiving the attention it deserves. Schultz has done a fantastic job of making it accessible.

10 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Meticulously researched???, November 3, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Quantrill's War: The Life & Times Of William Clarke Quantrill, 1837-1865 (Paperback)

I bought this book hoping for a new look at Quantrill to supplement Castel's classic biography. The errors were so rampant that I returned it! Many readers wouldn't recognize them, but someone who has read some of the true scholarship on the border war will immediately notice them and be quickly disgusted. If this author did his research, he left the notes at the library. Read Castel's version; it truly stands the test of time.

7 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars THE STORY OF AN ANTIHERO, December 21, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Quantrill's War: The Life and Times of William Clarke Quantrill 1837-1865 (Hardcover)

Written in an accessible style, this book will be welcomed by anyone with an interest in the civil War and the legend of the (in)famous William Quantrill. It reveals how the war helped create both the legend and reality of Quantrill and his gang, the Bushwhackers. According to Duane Schultz, Cpt Quantrill was a man hungry of power and thirsty of vengeance; a common outlaw and a killer. Quantrill ordered the raid on Lawrence in 1963. For hours the Bushwhackers rode through the street killing, burning and stealing. They had killed 150 men that day. The author tried to picture the psychological's profile of William Quantrill and sometimes gives subjectives affirmations to convince the readers he was the fiend incarnate. Nobody never get a truly balanced picture of the Civil war and Quantrill was probably not the devil Schultz thought he was. However "Quantrill's war" is a richly drawn study of the most controversial antihero of the United States history. PH. S.